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Why HP's Turnaround Plan Is Starting to Work

The fact that the PC market is continuing to shrink is no surprise to anyone. Tablets have continued to eat into consumer, and ultimately enterprise spending for some time now. However, as the market shrinks, it looks as if HP is doing whatever it can to grab every last piece of the shrinking pie it can.

A previous version of this story referred to EMEA as Europe, Middle East and Asia. It is Europe, Middle East and Africa. TheStreet regrets this error.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The fact that the PC market is continuing to shrink is no surprise to anyone. Tablets have continued to eat into consumer, and ultimately enterprise spending for some time now. However, as the market shrinks, it looks as if HP (HPQ) is doing whatever it can to grab every last piece of the shrinking pie it can.

Research firm Gartnerreleased its worldwide PC shipment findings for the first quarter, and found that although the PC market continued to shrink, with PC makers selling 76.6 million units, down 1.7% year-over-year, HP looks as if it's started to gain some traction. Thanks to strength in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), HP owned 16% of the market, selling 12.2 million units, up from 15.1% or 11.78 million in the year ago quarter. That's good enough for second place behind Lenovo, which continues to dominate the PC market (including -x86 tablets, but not other tablets). Lenovo had 16.9% of the market at the end of the first quarter of 2014, up from 16% at the end of the first quarter in 2013.

HP achieved its fastest shipment growth in two years, and the growth in EMEA exceeded the regional average by a wide margin, helping HP's overall position.

Rounding out the top five were Dell, with 12.5% of the market, Acer with 7.3%, and Asus with 6.9% of the market, respectively.